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And yet, even with that, Yann Collet credits Google's use of C++ for the compression library as a critical mistake that allowed him, an unknown, to gain tractio

And yet, even with that, Yann Collet credits Google's use of C++ for the compression library as a critical mistake that allowed him, an unknown, to gain traction with his own compression methods. Google later rewrote their library in C: https://overcast.fm/+LfVPHmBTo https://overcast.fm/+LfVPHmBTo Even if the tool chain exists, it must be adopted, unless you can rely on binaries being available for your end users, which will never be the case for a library which is just starting our. And adding another dependency to your build process, especially one as complex and with as many breaking version changes as C++, is a lot of work to take on.

pjmlp 3y ago
Unless we are talking about an obscure platform or some PIC CPU, a C++ compiler is available on the same box as the C compiler. Second, extern "C" exists. Third, in what concerns clang and MSVC, the C library is actually implemented in C++ with extern "C".
- epistasis 3y ago
  My single sentence may have been too concise, there are two concepts here: 1) the tool chain may or may not exist, and 2) bringing in that tool chain to the build system. Even if it's the "same" toolchain for compiling C++ as it is C, adding the complexity of an additional language to the build process, and the extra versioning headaches that C++ adds over C, is enough to kill library adoption. As I said originally, providing bindings is not the challenge, it's all the other stuff.
  - pjmlp 3y ago
    "To Save C, We Must Save ABI" https://thephd.dev/to-save-c-we-must-save-abi-fixing-c-function-abi https://thephd.dev/to-save-c-we-must-save-abi-fixing-c-funct...